


Tomorrow is a Long Time

by Khirsah



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: (She Gets Better), Angst, Community: falloutkinkmeme, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, SS Presumed Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-10 07:21:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5576467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khirsah/pseuds/Khirsah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tell me a lie. A good one.”</p><p>"I am so not in love with you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Full of Grace

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted as a one-shot called Full of Grace. The thing is, I couldn't leave Deacon that sad, so I have to keep going until there are smooches.

So. This is it.

It wasn’t supposed to go down this way. I’ve always been so careful. No broken bones, no big accidents, no _oops, Daddy, looks like you’re gonna be a grandfather a few years ahead of schedule_. I worked hard, I kept my head down, I followed all the rules.

And for what? A husband I couldn’t keep, a baby who’s been ripped from my side, a world gone to hell, and an abandoned train car for a coffin. A tin box that smells like irradiated rain and mutated cow piss.

_Fuck._

I’d laugh—I want to laugh—but it hurts too much still. But hey, just a few more minutes and I guess that won’t be a problem anymore.

“Hey. Hey, hey, now.” I can’t feel my legs, but I _can_ feel his hands on me; thumbs rough, calloused from a hard life and yet so incredibly gentle as they brush along my cheeks. It’s the contradictions that catch even the best liars in their own traps, and Deacon’s nothing if not a whole tangled mess of them when we’re alone together. “Heeeey, Charmer. How ‘bout you open those baby blues and give me a smile, huh?”

He sounds…well, he sounds like himself, but a younger version of himself. Like fear’s stripped a decade or two off of him to make that voice of his match his latest face. But he also sounds like my _partner_ , so I make myself straighten a little (head lolling when I push too hard, one hand slipping in the cooling pool of my own blood; fuck, fuck fuck) and open my eyes.

Deacon’s crouched there, straddling my useless legs. He’s got those shades on and a smile that can’t be real wending across his face. It goes wider— _tighter_ —like hip hip hooray, Charmer’s opened her eyes; give the girl a medal. “Heeey, there you are. Thought you clocked out on me.”

 _Not yet_. “Just taking a nap,” I say, forcing myself to smile back. It’s a weak little thing, but it’s worth the effort for the way it makes his own smile go more natural. “You know me—always liked to sleep in.”

“Tch. Remind me to talk to Des. Someone of my caliber can’t be paired with some old lazybones.”

“You could get Glory.”

Deacon fakes a flinch. His hands are still on me, thumbs digging lightly into the skin beneath my jawline as if checking for a pulse. It’s got to be weaker than he’d like if that flicker between his brows is anything to go by. “Oof, you’re right: I’ll keep you instead,” he says, trailing up to tuck back a bloody strand of hair; over to smooth down the collar of my suit; down to hover uselessly over the hole in my guts where the deathclaw neither of us saw coming got me.

Right _there_ , right over the old scar of my C-section. Scars giving life, death. Funny. It should be funny.

It doesn’t feel funny.

 _I’ll keep you instead_ , he says, like we’ve got a choice anymore.

“Deacon.” I reach up, fumbling, _clumsy_ for the first time in my life, and he catches my hand. Holds it between his own in a way that feels better than it should. Still, I resist, shaking him free until I can catch the bridge of those glasses. He doesn’t resist when I push them up to rest on the top of his head, right against the stubble that’s been growing in over this last long trek across the wasteland. He doesn’t even pull back when I rub my fingertips against that line between his brows, smearing his face with my own blood. Good man. “Deacon, I’m serious: when I’m…done…you should team up with Glory.”

That’s got him ducking away, though he doesn’t go far—just settles in next to me on the pile of God-knows-what, empty stimpacks littered around us like Halloween candy wrappers. There wasn’t enough room in the pack to take more; you can bet your ass I’m regretting carting along that _fucking_ Jangles now. “Aw now, partner,” Deacon says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. The whole world tilts, spins off like firecrackers in the night, but when it rights itself again, I’m pressed against his side with my face tucked easy as you please along the curve of his neck…and hell, that suits me just fine. There are worse places to die.

I mean. Not _much_ worse.

I close my eyes again, giving in to the threading exhaustion bit by bit. He’s saying something else—something about the Railroad finding its best agents; something about fighting; something about _buck up, partner, it’s not so bad._ Yeah. Lies like a dream, this one.

It’s getting to be all a blur, though—hazy and distant, like I’ve crawled wrong-way into a telescope and went tumbling out the other end. His voice rumbles beneath my ear, and his chest rises and falls, and he smells like musk and oak and…bizarrely…peppermint. Like the candies I used to crunch all through law school as I waded through books I’m more likely to use as kindling or toilet paper now. I wipe my ass with Torts; now there’s some irony.

Deacon shifts, and goes quiet. I breathe him in, filling my lungs with him for the last couple times. The familiar scent, the _warmth_ stirring against my hair, is what finally brings tears to my eyes. I can’t feel anything from my ribcage down, but I know I’m not hallucinating when I feel his lips brush my temple.

“Deacon?” I murmur. It barely sounds like me.

“…yeah?” Barely sounds like him, either. Is that my hearing going, or is losing me wrecking him this bad?

“Tell me a lie. A good one.”

His grip tightens; I barely feel it. “I only tell good lies, partner. You know, things may look pretty grim now, but tomorrow, you and I are going to finally convince Des that what the Railroad really needs are party hats. You know, pointy, polka dots, colorful? Nothing’ll confuse the Institute more.”

I can’t backhand him the way I usually would. Instead, I let gravity take over and just press deeper into him—like I’m trying to meld us together, flesh and blood and bone and spirit. Mostly spirit. It’s funny: I had to go a couple hundred years and the end of the world to find the man I was supposed to be with. Too bad I never got around to doing anything about that. “Better,” I mumble—slur? Feels like I’m drunk. Feels _good_. “Y’can do better. Deacon.” I want to open my eyes to look at him again, but I can’t. I just… _can’t_. But with the way he’s taken to trembling against me, chest all kinds of shuddery, breath going sharp and serrated like he’s swallowing back his own well of tears…I guess I really _don’t_ want to look after all. I’d rather remember that smirk. The way light caught off those glasses. “C’mon. Tell me,” I’m losing the words, but I keep fighting to the bitter end, “tell me a lie.”

Lips pressed against my hair. The sound of fabric scraping fabric as he pulls me closer. The scent of him—that peppermint, taking me back—and there’s not a breath of pain. Not anymore. Not here. I’m light as a feather, but I hold on hard as I can, straining with all I have left for one last lie from the man at the end of my world.

“Well,” he says, rough and quiet and familiar enough to send me on my way with a sigh, “you’ve gotta know, partner: I’m _so_ not in love with you.”

 _Yeah_ , I want to say; can’t. _That’s a pretty good one._


	2. Grace Under Pressure

Oh, no.

Ooooh, no. No. No way.

It is _not_ gonna end like this. Not in some rusty old tin can; not for her. Not Charmer, not when there are bigger, badder assholes out there who more than have it coming. Not when it could have been…

…me?

Yeah, sure, we’ll go with that. Sackcloth and self-hatred: it’s a party in my head, and shit, shit, Charmer. _Shit_. She’s slumped into the curve of my body like a forgotten rag doll, pale skin porcelain-white. The ragged gaps in her armor have long gone black with blood, and I swear I’d see bits of her insides fluttering with each weakening breath if I just had the _cahones_ to look.

But hey, everyone knows who carries the balls in this operation, and it’s not the guy with a penchant for fake mustaches.

It’s always been her. All of it, all of it. She’d led me through warzones and zephyrs and hell and back and sideways, and I’ve gotten so good at keeping her in my line of sight that I don’t know what I’ll do if I look up and find her gone. It’s like…she’s like…what? 

I’ve always been so good with words—they’re my trade, they’re my shield—but they’re slipping away faster than radroaches in the light. The metaphor I wanna reach for is right on the tip of my tongue, choking there with every breath I try to hold in my lungs because… Because, I dunno, maybe I think I can give her my own breaths if I try hard enough. Or maybe I’m just so fucking afraid of missing the last of _hers_ that I can’t bring myself to suck down enough oxygen. Whatever it is, it all comes down to fear and hope and I can’t think of the _words_.

Come on, come on old man, tick-tock, time’s running out: what are all the pretty things you never figured out how to say? What truths did you never have the guts to confess? You can do it; you got this much in you. Losing her will be like _what_?

Like,

Like,

Like…staring up at the empty night sky and realizing the whole world has gone dark.

_Jesus._

And, great, now cue the waterworks. I turn my face and bury it in her hair just in time to muffle a (incredibly manly) sob. It crawls out of my guts and tries to break its way free, but I’m not letting it; I’m not letting her hear me _cry_ over her, like I’ve given up. Even if I don’t have a clue what to do to save her—sitting with her blood soaking into my pants, feeling her go cold and still with every stolen moment, stimpacks scattered around us like favors for the worst party ever—I can’t let her know just how rabbit-scared I am. Let her know just how much losing her whittles me down to the bone.

Knowing Charmer, if she figured out what a sorry state I’m in, she’d try to rally the last of her _oomph_ to comfort _me_. And that’s not the way I want her to go. This isn’t the way I wanted any of this to go.

So. Okay then. Breathing through the pain, head down, taking it like it’s my due because I’m running out of options. When she makes a low noise ( _fuck, God, please no, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, you’ll be okay_ ) I squeeze my eyes shut and brush my traitor mouth against the flyaways just above her temple. Always did want to reach out and see if that hair was as soft as it looked.

And what do you know, it is. It really, really is.

“Deacon?” she rasps. I swear I can hear the beginning of the death rattle in her throat, low and thick, and it takes everything I’ve got to swallow back my own pained-animal noise enough to respond.

“…yeah?”

“Tell me a lie,” she says. “A good one.”

As last requests go, that one’s pretty shitty. I mean, it’s pure Charmer, giving me an easy out like that. Making things as smooth as she can for everyone around her. I always thought I had a way with words until I willingly (happily, ecstatically) stepped into her shadow, but Charmer… She’s one in a million. There’s never been anyone like her. Pretty sure there won’t be again. Dames like this are a one-time deal.

I clear my throat, grip tightening around her. _Come on baby, bullshit_. It should be easy enough—it’s what I _do_ —but, yeah, those words. Those words are failing me like they’re being shot down one after the other. I fumble for something to say anyway; I owe her. “I only tell good lies, partner,” I try, which is the first lie. I can feel the serrated hiss of her breath hot against my neck. It’s all I can do not to press my fingers to her throat so I can coax her pulse to keep going. Just…a little longer. “You know, things may look pretty grim now, but tomorrow, you and I are going to finally convince Des that what the Railroad really needs are party hats. You know, pointy, polka dots, colorful? Nothing’ll confuse the Institute more.”

The noise she makes, like she’s trying to laugh and simply _can’t_ anymore, couldn’t have been better crafted to break what’s left of my heart. I have to turn my face away, biting at the inside of my mouth to swallow back the noises that keep threatening. It’s torture. Keeping it all bottled up to ease these last minutes for her is torture. But I can do it; I can do anything for her. Haven’t our last months trolling the Commonwealth together more than proved that?

“Better,” she manages. Her voice is failing. She’s failing. I failed her long ago. “Y’can do better. Deacon.” I about lose it at the sound of my name in her voice for what’s gotta be the last time. It’s not the one I was born with, but it’s the one I chose, and that just makes it, Christ, that much better. “C’mon. Tell me…tell me a lie.”

This is some kind of divine retribution—some punishment for my sins. Because right now, right this moment, all I want to do is rip open my own chest and spill my guts to her. I always figured I’d give her the truth of my shitty life someday. She’s more than earned it. Hell, she’s earned every bit of devotion I’ve got inside me. Whatever’s good, whatever’s decent, whatever’s managed to crawl on out of the muck and strip itself of all I’ve done…she’s earned that. She’s got to know she can have all of me for the asking.

And now, seconds, _seconds_ away from the end, all she wants is another one of my lies.

Bitter, bitter irony. And I’m gonna swallow it down, because, oh yeah, I’d do anything for this girl. My _partner_. So I press my lips against her hair and hold onto her and think of all those stars just winking out of existence one by one by one as she fades away. God, it’s gonna hurt tomorrow. “Well,” I manage, thumb stroking along the curve of her spine. “You’ve gotta know, partner: I’m _so_ not in love with you.”

And look at me go: I’ve told a lot of lies in my life, but I’ve never managed one so big. Might as well keep going, right?

“I don’t think about you all that much. Almost never, actually. I’m pretty sure kissing you is the last thing I’d ever want to do. I mean, come on: can you imagine? Deacon and Charmer. They’d laugh us right out of the Railroad—assuming Des didn’t gut me first. And they’d be right to laugh. What a terrible pair we’d make. What a…”

I wet my lips and rub my cheek against her hair, as if that can somehow dry the tears I can’t quite keep in check. She’s gone so still and quiet, I’m not sure whether she’s still with me; I’m too chickenshit to look. So I just keep talking and hope she can hear me. Hope she can read the truth trembling just beneath each word.

“What a mistake it was to fall in with you. I’ve never made a worse call in my life. My life would be so much better without you. I’d be so happy without you. I’m…going to be _so happy_ without you, Charmer. And I’ll never, never think of you again, ever, because I am _so_ not in love with you. I am _so_ not in love with you it hurts. I am _so_ not in love with you it drives me crazy every day, and every night, and every moment in between, and I just…”

I just _break_ , then, the sob catching me off-guard, making my voice crack and shatter like a mirror that’s been struck dead-on. I coil around her, hating the dead ( _dead_ ) weight of Charmer in my arms when she’s so full of life, so she’s bright, she’s so, so, so _vital_ , she’s so vital to me, and I can’t, I can’t, I just

“Please,” I choke out, shaking, holding on. “Please don’t go, don’t go, don’t, _don’t_.” Like saying it might bring her back. Like life works the way it does in fairy tales.

And you know? Maybe it does in its own fucked up way, because I swear not a second after the words are out of my mouth there’s a blinding flash of light and a feeling of complete weightlessness. It makes my stomach flip over again and again, as if that deathclaw has somehow managed to crawl back to life and is shaking the old tin can we’re hunkered in.

Except when I blink away swarming black dots, we’re not in the abandoned train car anymore. We’re somewhere…new. Strange. Blindingly white and beautiful and terrible all at once. There’s shouting, and people grabbing for Charmer. I must react, though my brain’s still spinning wild like a top, because before I know what’s happening someone’s got me by the throat we’re tumbling until I’m pressed to the floor—cheek against stark white tile, arms pinned, watching in horror as a _Courser_ lifts Charmer in his arms and takes her away. Like he has any right to her; like the Institute can just take and take and take and _take_.

I fight. I kick and snarl and maybe break a little inside, seeing her carted away like that. Seeing her taken, taken from me, taken for good, taken by _them_. Oh God, I can’t stand the thought of her being taken by _them_. And as I go fucking mad fighting back with all I’ve got, yelling her name as if that’ll somehow do the trick, baring my teeth like the wild animal I feel myself becoming, I can’t help the quiet thought that wends its way through me with the tang of bitter irony:

If all Charmer wanted from me is lies, maybe it’s a good thing she’s gone. Because my little non-confession aside, pinned to the floor, howling, losing my Goddamned mind… _this_ is the most honest I’ve been in a long, long, _long_ time.

And I don’t need anyone to tell me I’m once again too late.


	3. Grace in the Meantime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger warning:** Lingering angst. Some of Deacon's thoughts get a little suicidey-sounding, but it's a glancing sort of thing. Still, if that will trigger you, please skip this chapter.

You ever think to yourself: you know what? It’d be real nice if I just forgot how to wake up. If my body just didn’t finish whatever stirrings it’s got planned and I could sink back down slow and easy.

Yeah. Real nice.

Because I can tell, floating just beneath the surface in that hollow place between _awake_ and _asleep_ , that I’m somewhere I don’t wanna be. The bed’s too soft and smells too clean. The blanket’s warm and not gnawed full of holes. There’s a low _beep beep beep_ right by my head, echoing my heart as it picks up speed and, oh yeah, yeah, this is _bad_. This is real next level bad.

So I just play chicken for another minute, willing myself back into unconsciousness with everything I’ve got. A coward to the core. Like if I just stay under long enough, I’ll drown in all that black and won’t have to face where I am, what’s happened, who I’ve lost.

And _shit_.

Just…shit.

All at once my eyes are stinging and that beeping’s growing louder. It’s like one of those suicide nukes, piercing and frantic and terrible—except it’s attached to me through wires and electrodes stuck all over my chest, giving me away. Giving away all the secrets I’ve got. Like each electronic bleat is a bit of Morse code, beating out fear, heartbreak, anger, despair. Hell. Not even I can pretend it all away.

“I know you’re awake,” a low voice says.

I don’t open my eyes. “No I’m not.” Worth a try, right?

He—whoever he is—actually sighs. “You plan on making this difficult on us, don’t you Deacon?”

 _Deacon_. I’ve got this wild, flashing moment wondering how the Institute (because yeah, who the hell else could it be?) knows my name. Has the Railroad been made? Are they sending Coursers down to wipe everyone out even now? God, Charmer would be gutted (ha, oh God, it’s not funny but it is but it’s not, _fuck fuck_ , I’m all kinds of fucked up) if she realized the two of us brought this down on them.

I hope Des had enough forewarning to light them all up like firecrackers.

The machine’s spiking as my thoughts go spinning out into increasingly dark corners, and I figure, well, fuck it. They can only torture my _body_ now, and who cares about that? I’m ripping at those wires and electrodes even as I push myself up onto my elbows, eyeing the old man sitting placidly by my bed. He doesn’t look like the mad scientist type, but hey, I figure, I know a little something about false faces. 

I yank off the last wire and the beeping _finally_ goes silent. Neither of us move. “So,” I say with all kinds of forced black cheer. Seriously, what do I have left to lose? Maybe I can get my hands on a mini-nuke after all and _beep beep beep_. “How d’you know who I am? Don’t tell me: you checked the inside of my underwear? You know, I _told_ Mom that’d come back and bite me someday.”

Ha, ha, right? Good old Deacon, slinging jokes until the last huzzah.

I’m looking to get him off-balance, but the old man just shakes his head. “Grace talks in her sleep,” he says, as casually as if he weren’t sending me sailing tip over top, suddenly breathless with the worst kind of hope. “Only a word or two is intelligible, but she’s been calling out for Deacon…for you, I presume.”

For me.

She’s alive. She’s alive and she’s calling _for me_.

And that—

That—

I can’t. I just can’t. I don’t have words for what that is.

“Grace?” I say instead, tongue gone so thick it comes out choked. All I can see is the sweep of her lashes as she closes her eyes; the messy swoop of her curls falling across a cheek; the shape of her mouth and the capable coil of her fist and the way she looked at me as she died in my arms.

 _Grace_. I’ve only ever known her as Charmer; hearing her given name from this stranger’s lips feels wrong, like he’s taken something precious from us. (Like he’s giving it back at the same time, spit-polished clean and somehow new again.)

Because against all the odds in New Vegas, Grace…Charmer…is _alive_.

And she’s been calling my name.

“Oh,” I say, because hey, what _is_ there to say in a moment like this? Some unknowable span of time ago, I was being pressed to the gleaming floor of my enemy's home base, screaming fit to die and watching the woman I, you know, being carted off to only God knew what by Institute lackeys. I was feeling like every piece of me was breaking apart atom by atom and now…

Now, she’s alive, she’s alive, she’s _alive_.

She’s also who-the-fuck-knows-where, squirreled away by the _Institute_ , but hey—baby steps. I’ve gotta feel my way out of this if I want to snag her and blow this stand. Hopefully literally. “That’s cool. Uh, glad she made it.”

The old man doesn’t look impressed. “She almost didn’t. Luckily, my interest in her wellbeing extends to the occasional surveillance unit.” And before I can fully digest the horror of _that_ , he’s leaning forward, eyes locked on mine. I feel all kinds of naked without my sunglasses or wig or, hey now, actual _clothes_. Someone took the liberty of stripping me down and scrubbing me squeaky clean while I was out, and the blanket puddled around my hips is the only thing keeping this moment from being a little too cozy for comfort. “You travel with her often, don’t you?”

Yeah, I’m not answering that. I give the room they stuck me in a quick look-see, but my stuff’s nowhere to be seen. (Which is a bummer. Not only was that my favorite pistol, but I’ve got some gum I’ve been saving for a rainy day. Institute bastards.) “You know, this place,” I say instead, ignoring the question. Des—and Charmer—would say I’m good at that. ( _Charmer’s still alive to bitch about what an asshole I am_ , and hell, no, suppress suppress, now isn’t the time for that kind of bursting joy.) “You could really use some sprucing up. Not that I want to tell you how to run things. I mean, you do you. But it looks like the inside of one of those snowglobes.”

The old man just makes an old man face.

“But hey, add a little color, jush up the soulless white walls, toss a few throws around and _bam_. You’re in business. You should have Grace give you pointers. She’s made some settlements really shine. And have you seen the Commonwealth lately? Because that ain’t easy. Hey, where is she, anyway?” It’s too smooth, too eager, but bite me—I’m not exactly on my best game. I won’t be, couldn’t be, until I see her again. Until I can press my fingers beneath the line of her jaw and take this welling of hope into a stable certainty with each throb of her pulse.

She’s alive; yeah, well, _prove it_.

“I am going to take your circuitous response as a yes.”

 _You can take my foot up your tight ass instead_. I smile. “Yeah, sure. You do that.”

“My name’s Shaun,” he adds, standing smoothly. I don’t usually get into the whole I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours dick measuring thing—not unless I’ve had a few drinks and someone asks real nice—but he’s an Institute prick and I’m not going to just sit here and look pretty. So I climb to my feet too, letting the blanket fall to the side, and cross my arms over my chest.

Like. Completely naked. But hey, I’ve fought supermutants in my underwear; this is nothing.

“Deacon,” I say, trying to stare him down—seeing if I even can. I’m hyperaware of my surroundings, already mentally plotting out exit routes even as I know I’m not going anywhere. Not until I’ve got Charmer. Not until I know she’s safe and with me and, and whole again and…

And…

And hey. _Wait_ a second.

“…Shaun?” I repeat slowly, squinting at the old man. Nah. Can’t be. Right?

He crosses his arms over his chest, subtly mimicking my pose. “Yes. So, Deacon: what are your intentions toward my _mother_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit, this entire chapter was a lead-up to that last line.


	4. State of Grace

I remember—

_Pain. Fear. Regret._

_The smell of peppermint?_

—and it’s enough to finally have me bobbing to the surface. I feel weightless, as if my body’s one of those old party balloons they used to sell for neighborhood birthdays. Shiny and stretched tight and filled to bursting with air as they went wending lazily up to the sky. I turn my face against soft cotton and wonder that I’m not butting gently against the ceiling. Just floating there, caught against the cool tile, and _wow_ , okay, either I’m really fucking high or I’ve lost what’s left of my mind.

I crack open a wary eye, flinching against the blinding white, and spot _Deacon_ standing in the doorway. He’s dressed in an Institute uniform, feet bare, toes pale and hairy, arms crossed defensively over his chest. Next to him, speaking in a low voice, is my son.

Deacon and _my son_ , sharing the same space, circling each other like wary dogs, and yeah, oh yeah: definitely high. Because I’ve gotta be high to be this happy to see both of my boys together. ( _My boys_ , as if they don’t stand on opposite ends of an ugly war that’s set to blow up in my face any day now.)

I close my eye again, squeezing tight against the vertigo as I try to push myself up. I know Deacon better than he’ll ever let himself believe, and there is no way in hell I’m letting him face all this alone. _He needs me_ ; I don’t even have to think of the defensive curve of his shoulders to know just how freaked out he is, and, and, fuck it, _besides_ all that, I need to touch him to feel grounded again. My body’s still stupidly light and the whole world is moving at a quarter-speed. Deacon’s the only thing that’ll make me feel real again.

Like…I survived. I’m alive. We’re _alive_.

My legs give out the moment my feet hit cold tile.

“ _Charmer!_ ” Deacon yelps, and I barely have time to think— _oh hey, floor_ —before he’s across the room as if he teleported, catching my lolling head with one broad palm, my hip with the other. He pulls me up against him, arms wrapping just shy of too tight, and God, there’s nowhere in the whole Commonwealth I’d rather be. “Hey, hey, hey now,” he murmurs, guiding my head until my face is pressed against his shoulder. A calloused thumb brushes heartbreakingly gentle across my cheek. “Baby steps, partner. Baby steps. Come on; can you hold on?”

I want to say something scathing, but there are tears on my lashes and I don’t trust myself to say a word. He just feels so _warm_. Warm and familiar and here, he’s here, he’s holding me, he’s cradling me close like I’m made of spun glass or something else just as improbable, and that shouldn’t hurt the way it does. That shouldn’t make my lungs seize up and my heart lurch in my chest, but _Christ_ does it ever. I wrap my arms tight around his neck and nod against his shoulder, holding on with everything I have.

Trusting him, because I know he’s got me.

The world goes spinning when he stands, keeping me cradled in his arms. I just squeeze my eyes shut tight and try to wipe away the traitorous tears against soft Institute material. I half expect him to settle me down on the bed and pull back—Deacon’s not exactly the kind to sit in one place for long—but he surprises me by climbing up onto the mattress and leaning back against the far wall, me still coiled like a snake in his arms. He leans in, chin brushing my temple, and kisses the crown of my hair.

I squeeze my eyes tighter, tighter, and focus all I’ve got on just holding on.

“You can stop being a creeper _any_ time now,” Deacon says after a few long minutes where all I do is breathe and try not to cry and wait for whatever drugs they gave me to wear off—and for one startled second, I think he means _me_.

But then there’s a scuff of a foot not far away and a gruffly cleared throat. “The doctors should check on her,” Shaun says.

Deacon strokes a hand down my spine. “Yeah, because I’m just going to _hand her over_ to you.”

“She’s my mother,” Shaun says pointedly, almost angrily. Deacon is very, very good at ruffling feathers when he wants to.

He snorts, cupping the back of my head. “Yeah,” he says, “and she’s _my_ —” He cuts off sharply before he can say the rest; I’m left dying to know what word would have filled that heavy, strained silence. _What?_ I think, listening to the rabbit-fast pound of his heart. _I’m your what?_

“—partner,” Deacon finally finishes, soft. He’s always calling me that, glib and teasing and off-handedly affectionate, but right now, here, it sounds…different. _Intimate_. Like somewhere between getting mauled by a deathclaw and waking up in the Institute, that one word has undergone some strange metamorphosis.

_I’m so not in love with you_ , he’d said, and I smile against the protective curve of his shoulder.

“ _Be that as it may_ ,” Shaun’s saying, not getting it—because he was raised safe and sound in a place where words like that don’t have triple meanings layered one beneath the next—and I lift my head before either of them can say anything more. I don’t want them to fight; it’s going to be hard enough when I have to turn against my own son and destroy the only home he’s ever known. I don’t want to make it any worse by letting bad blood spill before that day.

“Hey,” Deacon murmurs, cutting off whatever Shaun was about to say. His eyes are fixed on me—big and serious and dark and naked without his glasses.

I was going to say something to derail the oncoming fight, but instead I just stare, words, brain, what-have-you completely derailed. I…don’t think I’ve ever seen him without those sunglasses before. His eyes are hazel, flecked with green and grey and gold and even a little bit of blue; liar’s eyes that refuse to be any one color. I wonder if they’re really his. I wonder if that’s something the surgeons can change. “You have…really long eyelashes,” I say; my voice sounds thick from whatever they gave me to dull the pain. “Like a brahmin’s.”

He snorts and rubs his thumb up and down the back of my neck in something that can’t be called anything but a caress. “Listen to her,” he says, mostly to himself. “Claiming I look like a cow. What a charmer this one is.”

And maybe it’s the joy of finding myself alive despite all the odds, and maybe it’s the good stuff they’ve pumped into my blood, and maybe it’s just _Deacon_ sitting here and looking at me with those beautiful eyes crinkled up at the corners in an irrepressible grin—shadows dark bruises because he’s been through so much and yet, right now, he’s so very _happy_ —that I just, I do, I want to kiss him. I want to take his scruffy cheeks between my palms and press our mouths together and chase his taste with my tongue and _kiss him_ like we’re stars of some old world melodrama. I want it more than I know what to do with.

“ _Ah_ ,” Shaun says, then clears his throat. I glance over my shoulder at him, frowning in confusion; his cheeks are red beneath the white beard. “I’ll just…come back later.” All-powerful ‘Father’, wise leader of the Institute and grown-ass man he might be, but right now he looks like an embarrassed kid as he slinks off, door closing with a quiet _shush_ behind him.

I blink at the spot where my son had stood. Swivel back around to look at Deacon. He’s flushed too, but with laughter—it’s practically bubbling out of him, straining the seams as his lips quirk and his eyes dance and his chest shudders wonderfully against me.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Lemme guess,” I say. “That was out loud.”

“ _Yuuuuup._ ”

Crap. “Can we just…pretend I didn’t say any of it?”

A dimple flashes at the corner of his mouth. How is he such an asshole and yet so _perfect_? “ _Noooooope_.”

I sigh. “I hate you,” I say, but my lips are twitching too—and when he tugs me up a little closer, so I tumble warm and boneless against his chest, I can’t help a glad laugh from spilling free. Some unknown span of time ago, I was counting the seconds I had left on this earth and mourning all the things I’d never gotten the chance—the _guts_ —to do. Now I’m here, with Deacon, both of us so very much alive, and… Just… There is so much possibility spread out before me, I’m not sure yet which way I want to go. What I want to say and do first.

Except maybe sink against the warmth of him and watch the way his eyes go softer—sweeter—as I lean close. His breath gusts across my cheeks when I press our foreheads together, hot and perfect. My heart is racing.

“I hate you,” I say again, softly, meaning something so very very different.

He just reaches up to brush back my hair, fingers tenderly tucking wild curls behind my ears. “You’re such a little liar,” he murmurs, and then… _at last, at last_ …his lips are brushing mine and he’s kissing the breath from me.


End file.
